Ifdakar sets sights on a reunion with Umphrey's McGee. Now their fans have to help make it happen.

Ifdakar performs at the Red Lion Hotel Paper Valley during the Mile of Music festival in August.(Photo11: Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

If all goes as planned, Fox Cities band Ifdakar will have a new album ready to go by the end of the year — one with contributions from one of the biggest jam bands in the country and the guy who played trumpet on "California Love."

All that separates Ifdakar and that goal now is a stack of cash. That's why earlier this month they launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $8,000. If they make it before the Feb. 5 deadline, they'll head to Niles, Michigan to record at the home studio of Jake Cinninger, guitarist for Chicago-based jam band Umphrey's McGee.

Using pledge packages like festival access, show tickets, a play-where-you-want Ifdakar show and more as bait, the hope is the five-piece band of Curtis Biese, Zach Chisholm, Frank Deringer, Mike Romenesko and Jon Schinke will be able to finish off a journey that began back in 2017.

That's when the group first went to Cinninger's Michigan studio, where they recorded four songs for what first was thought to be an EP. Things went so well, though, that plans changed.

"We were just going to do an EP and leave it at that," Biese said. "We wanted more face time with Jake. ... We weren't done with him. We were like rather than release an EP, let's go back and finish a full album and maybe that's our break."

The goal now is to finish off their third full-length album, titled "Lion's Share," with another batch of four songs. The $8,000 will pay for the studio time, travel, some advertising and the production of a music video.

As of Tuesday afternoon, they'd just moved past halfway to their fundraising goal.

The Ifdakar-Cinninger connection came courtesy of another accomplished musician and a mutual friend of the two parties. Willie Waldman, a veteran trumpeter and producer best known for playing on songs by 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Salt-N-Pepa and Sublime, shared a bill with Ifdakar in 2010 at Cranky Pat's in Neenah. The Ifdakar guys got to know him a bit and then reconnected at the Summer Camp Music Festival in Chillicothe, Illinois — which happens to be the same festival Umphrey's McGee has headlined more than 15 years in a row.

Jake Cinninger plays with his band Umphrey's McGee at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in 2014.(Photo11: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

Waldman sat in on Ifdakar's set and suggested they arrange to get together to record with Cinninger. It didn't take a whole lot of arm twisting for Biese and company to agree.

They hit the studio — which is dubbed Boondock Vortex and isn't far from Umphrey's origin territory of South Bend, Indiana — in November 2017. The Umphrey's shredder produced the songs and played on two tracks. Waldman also played on two.

"Jake's such an amazing guitar player and now we have him playing on our tracks," Biese said. " ... Now I have to try to replicate that and he is a very talented player. I said to Jake, I'm like 'Now don't make these too difficult because I'm the one who has to play them when you're not here."

Later this year, Ifdakar will play the Summer Camp festival for a sixth time. Umphrey's McGee is again among the headliners for the May 24-26 event, along with Big Gigantic, Zeds Dead and moe. The Ifdakar camp is hoping Cinninger will be up for a guest appearance during their set, like Waldman was able to do in the past.

That might be high hoping for an Appleton band still trying to make a name for themselves in the jam scene — but the same could have been said for getting somebody from a perennial festival headliner to welcome them into a studio and play on a pair of tracks.

"In a way we have a future legend playing on our album, on our songs," Biese said. "If this is the only thing we ever do from here on out, years from now I think people will realize how big of an opportunity this was."